The Carlisle Chronicles
by Cecelia Pemberly
Summary: Once a hater of the damned race of the vampires, Carlisle Cullen's views are changed unwillingly, unable to change the past.
1. Frost Bite

It was a cold London night, bitterly frigid. My coat was thick, padded with layers of wool, and yet it wasn't enough to keep me warm. I fashioned my hat over my dirty blonde hair that wasn't worth combing through, and I wrapped my light blue scarf around my neck and part of my face. Lastly, I grabbed my father's pistol off the wall and stuffed it into my belt. It was uncomfortable, its cold metal freezing my skin through my breeches. I sighed to myself in the mirror. I'm twenty three years old. I shouldn't be living with my father, doing his bidding. He was a preacher that went against his morals that he preached. He believed that the innocent should be rewarded, and then he went out falsely accusing them of being nonexistent monsters, such as witches, werewolves and…_vampires._

Now, due to his age, I was following in his footsteps by force. I was the one being forced out into the glacial London winter to complete a chore that I didn't believe was moral, but I couldn't go against the town's priest. That would make me just as horrible as the monsters I was set out to find and kill. I glanced back at my father, wrapped up in a blanket with his Bible by the fire. Pursing my lips, I silently slipped out the door and into the snowy night.

Drifts of glittering snow piled against the buildings and street lamps around the city. The fire danced upon the blankets, creating stars in the white heavens. Heaven. Was there a place after someone passed on? When their life ended and they left this torturous, agonizing world, did they move on into a place where it was never cold and snowy, or hot and humid? It was a paradise, and as I walked out into the foot of snow covering most of the road, I wished that I could be there now. I could take my life today and join everyone there, especially my mother.

My father accused women who had hooked noses and cackled when they laughed as being witches. Men who had a bad argument with their wives and were running angrily through town on full moons were werewolves. If a beggar's lips were cracked and bleeding from the mouth and his skin was pale as snow, they were a vampire. My father had no logic to back up his sentiments, but I did. I had a mind that wasn't full of hell, fire and damnation. I had a brain of reason, full of answers to questions that asked 'why' and 'what'. Why did snow sparkle? It's just water. What are the symptoms of influenza? Fever, fatigue, headaches, and coughing, just to name a few. I had the mind to know that the people I'd discovered were not average humans. Their combined lack of heat chilled the area they resided. Their eyes were copper, almost topaz, and their features were too perfect to be a human being's.

And I found them.

My father's congregation joined me on my trek through the snow, bearing torches for illumination and as a weapon. They didn't care for my logic, as it was unnecessary. They knew that vampires were vampires and witches were witches from my father's sermons, but they didn't care to know why. I had evidence from my experience to back up my discovery, but they didn't care as long as they were dead. We all trudged through the snow, the water soaking into our trousers and boots with the water soaking up toward our thighs. I was shivering not only from the flakes on my face before they melt and the wind, but from the nervousness. I was so _close. _I was going to protect the people of London from these savages. They weren't innocent people, they were indeed _vampires._ I stopped about fifty feet from the entrance of their abode, waiting for them to emerge to hunt. There we all stood, knee deep in snow with the wind blowing hard on the sides of our faces with me in the front lines. The wind blew my newsboy style hat off and down the road, and my shoulder length hair blew in front of my eyes. At one moment when the locks blew out of my path of vision, there was no one in front of me, and not a second later, four of the beasts had peaked out from their dwelling.

The townspeople went wild, and they themselves turned into the savages I wanted to cleanse the city of. Charging at them, the vampires fled, all but one. Even in the dark I could see its eyes were black as pitch, and he staggered about like his bones were too weak to carry him. The faster vampires attacked us, but some brave villagers warded them away as I broke through the mob to confront the weak leech. What was I doing?! My reasoning mind was failing me in a moment of panic and confusion. A flaw of the human mind! And yet with this awareness, I still climbed forward, my hand on the pistol that was slowly causing frostbite on my hip.

Then the world that had seemed so slow flashed before my eyes.

Before I could even get a grip on my gun, the weak blood-sucking monster lunged at me, stopping only feet in front of me. Its black eyes were wide, eyeing me with a disturbing interest. I was the hunter that became the hunted. I took a step back, and it sensed my fear as it seemed, because with the slightest twitch of movement, it advanced and tackled me, forcing me into the cold blanket. The wind was knocked out of me, and my only wish couldn't be granted.

I wished to scream.

I was a grown man, and all I wanted to do was scream for mercy. A clergyman's son wanted to ask a vampire for their mercy. What mercy would they give, for they were a damned race? I was pinned to the ground, the vampire's eyes full of hunger and the urge to kill. I could barely breathe, and all I could hear were screams. The next thing I could physically feel after the snow numbed me was the piercing pain of teeth ripping my skin through to the veins of my neck.

It was the worst pain I'd ever experienced. It stung worse than a hornet, salt in an open wound, or the frostbite on my hip. It was worse than all three put together. Far worse. It felt like white hot metal being melted down and injected into my veins, and I felt like I was on fire. Maybe I was, but I didn't know it because I had my eyes clenched shut. Then again, even with my dulled senses, I could still tell that I was on the soft blanket of snow, and not the hardened cold dirt road. I couldn't be on fire.

I could vaguely hear screams, but they kept getting softer as they echoed through my head. I couldn't tell if they were running away from where I lay, or if it was the poison killing my logical mind. I forced myself onto my hands and knees to crawl toward the white light and desperately embrace the death that was to be anticipated before me. All I wanted to do is end this horrible burning pain! I wanted to rid myself of the guilt that overwhelmed me, but it felt like a stubbed toe compared to the pain I endured physically. I could feel myself stumble blindly around in the snow, and then I could feel myself slip on something round and soggy, but I couldn't figure out what it was. All I knew was that I was in a pile of them, and they soon collapsed around me. I crumpled into the pile of the unknown, waiting for death to find me since the light disappeared from before my eyes.


	2. Lux Aurumque

I didn't know how long I'd been in the dark. I'd been suffering until the screams were all but gone, and the sounds of everyday life seemed to continue. I couldn't separate hours from days, or days from years. It all seemed to be a mesh. My eyes had been closed for what seemed like eternity, or was I still in the dark because I was blind? I forced by eyelids open, and I pushed myself out of the pile of what I knew now to be potatoes.

I was immediately blinded, since I hadn't been before. The snow sparkled so much in the morning sun that I fell backwards again. I never remembered it being this bright! I felt like I could see ever individual snowflake in the drifts, and every speck of light that reflected off of them. It was overwhelming! Were my eyes so sensitive because I'd been seeing nothing but darkness for however long I'd been under? I wasn't sure. I pushed myself out of the drift, but when I looked down at my hand, I was shocked. It was pure white, the same color as the snow itself. Frost bite? It seemed like it, but I could still move my hand. I could still feel my hand, but it just felt different. Maybe it was only a minor case of frostbite, the first stage.

When I looked down at my hand, my hair fell in front of my face. I reached up and took a lock of it between my fingers. I could definitely feel it, but it came as a double shock. I hadn't bothered to brush my hair before I left, but now it looked as if it was from a painting. Everything was perfect, with a silky texture that made my fingers nearly slide off the strands. It was almost beautiful. Instead of a dirty blond and brown mix, it was almost a golden blond, shining in the light before the sun faded away behind a thick layer of snow promising clouds. How had this happened?! It was another question that I could not answer, and the sense of unknowing was driving me insane!

I stood up, and I was stable. It was surprising after being off my feet for a still unknown amount of time. I looked out on the streets, and there seemed to be no one. "It must be Sunday" I said to myself. Three days. I'd been under the pile of potatoes for three days. What a disgusting thought… I went out into the empty road, and I was able to kick through the snow with ease. As I looked around, I could see faint red marks in the snow. I shuttered. Blood. It was in the snow, and on the buildings, and my throat started to burn. I was so thirsty. I knelt down and in desperation, I took a handful of snow and started to eat it, but something strange mixed with the melted water, and I spat it out. _What the hell? _I thought to myself. I could feel a liquid in my mouth, but it was like nothing I'd felt before. I swallowed it, and gagged a bit. I didn't know what it was like to have been starved and parched for three days, but I supposed that this was only the start.

I kept walking, and I passed my father's church. I opened the doors quietly, and the choir was singing. It was my favorite song, but it was supposed to sound happy. Instead, it was a lament. _Lux Aurumque, _Latin for _Light and Gold._ It sang of the celebration of birth, but how come it sounded like a hymn of mourning? I looked through the choir, and saw Audrey Gray. _My_ Audrey Gray. I'd been courting her for years. She had the most tragic look on her face, like she could barely sing. She had a gorgeous voice that could be heard above all throughout the cathedral, but today, I couldn't hear her at all. What was wrong? I forced myself to close the doors, not wanting to find out.

I felt bitterly alone. Bitter like the cold. Bitter like the taste in my mouth. Bitter like the vampire that attacked me. The burning, was it all a mind game? Had I only imagined it all? It seemed too real for the imagination. I reached up and touched a bit of my neck under my coat and felt squeamish at the touch. Two holes at the base of my neck that had been scarred over resided there, reminding me that it had not been my imagination. I had been bitten, and I couldn't take that moment back. Then it hit me like nothing else before, and I was struck with absolute, unqualified fear. My skin, my hair, my throat and its burning, it all made sense now! I broke out into a run, and I was so shocked I had to stop myself. I was going too fast for a normal _human_! In just two seconds of running, I'd passed two blocks! I looked back at my tracks. Was there a trough of snow before I started running, or did I kick it away with such ease that I couldn't have known the difference?! I was more frightened than ever before, and I kept running, jogging now. It was just a bit slower than running, but it still made me want to keel over and throw up. What have I become?!

I ran for miles, up to a hilltop outside of town. Gravestones decorated the hill, helping people remember those who have been lost in previous decades, years, months or weeks. I knew my mother's grave location and chiseling like the back of my _old_ hand.

Elizabeth Josephine Cullen

August 21st 1620-February 13th 1642

The grave was next to all my other ancestors, and there were quite a few of them. My grandfather, Carlyle Cullen had been a priest, the inspiration for my father. I was named after him, but my grandfather insisted on having it spelled differently than his name. Then there was my aunt, whose husband had been charged with abuse and rape, and who did not lie next to her. Some of my cousins lie in the ground next to their parents, and there were people who lived during my time that I never really got to know. My father's plot was reserved on one side of my mother, and mine was to be on the other side. I walked up the hill to the Cullen plots, and weaved through to my mother's. I was upset when at a distance I saw a gravestone next to hers. Had some illiterate grave digger put someone in the wrong spot? No, they had educated people hold that job for a reason. I got closer, and when I could read the chiseling in the stone, I fell to my knees.

Carlisle Fairfax Cullen

February 13th 1642-December 29th 1665

I wanted to scream again. I wanted to scream to the heavens "I'M NOT DEAD!" I wasn't buried in the ground. I was alive, and I always would be! I was a VAMPIRE! A dreadful, damned VAMPIRE! It wasn't the fact that I was being falsely accused as being deceased that I was becoming tense. It was the knowing that I was lost for only three days, and no one wanted to look any harder to find me before they pronounced me gone and dead!

I went closer to the grave, and I saw some items by it, some flowers and a note. I bent down and grabbed the piece of paper. It had a smell to it, a strong one at that. Perfume. It was Audrey's perfume. The kind she always wore with me because I loved the smell of it. I opened the note with shaky hands.

_Carlisle,_

_I don't know why it had to end in such a tragic way for you, being killed by one of those savages. When I heard the next morning, I spent the rest of the day crying. You were innocent, and your father says that the innocent should be rewarded! You were killed! The witnesses said that they saw you bitten by that leech, and then you were gone! I wish we could have had a proper burial for you, with your body present, but it was nowhere to be found…_

There were ink blots and what seemed like tear drops after that for a long while. It was like she tried to write, but she couldn't control her hand enough to do so.

_Perhaps you were rewarded, but in a cruel way. You don't have to endure this horrid, murderous world any longer. You can live in heaven and watch over me._

_I'll always be yours, and you'll always be mine. No other man can have me after how you've treated me, Carlisle. Your name shall always be on my lips, longing to be with yours just one last time. I love you, and I always shall._

_-Truly Yours, Audrey_ _Cullen_

Frustration was mounting in the pits of my stomach. Not only was I a vampire, but my one and only love had been RIPPED away from me! I can't go back to London with everyone believing that I was no longer on this earth. Surely, I probably looked like a spirit, but I didn't act like one! My heart wasn't beating. It was as if it wasn't there, and yet it felt like it'd been ripped in half. We were two lovers who could never meet again in person. I was innocent and punished! I could never leave this horrible world and live in a place of eternal peace. I would never rejoin my Audrey in heaven, and the very thought was driving me insane!

Without thinking, I ran. I couldn't stay in London any longer. I would risk being recognized, and if everyone around thought you were dead and they found you again, it was much worse of a fate than you'd already been destined to endure. The wind has started to pick up again, and the snow blew into my face, but I felt as if I was going so fast that it wasn't touching me. I kicked off a low tombstone and thrust myself forward over the snow. It was nothing more or less than flying. I extended my legs downward, hoping perhaps that they would break on the inevitable impact that I would feel in just three…two…one.

It never came, at least in the way I wished.

My feet became planting perfectly on the ground, not unlike a cat's. I was balanced. There was no force pushing my upper half forward into the ground. Instead, I was sure I felt the ground shake under my weight. In another act of desperation, I took a running start and jumped again. Perhaps I could break my neck this time. Surely that would kill a vampire as well as it would a human? I closed my eyes, waiting for the crack to end my life, but instead, my eyes snapped open in reflex as I lost altitude, and I stretched my arms in front of me to fall into a roll to absorb the impact of the fall. I sprawled out my legs to keep me from rolling down the hill any farther, and I lay there, looking up at the gray sky. The snow fell on top of me, and I kept blinking it away. Soon I just ended the struggle and closed my eyes completely.

I wanted to cry. I wanted to cry more than any other time in my life. I tried, but no matter how hard I wished, no tears would come out of my eyes. Could vampires not cry?! Suddenly I thought of crying as one of life's underrated pleasures. I wanted what I couldn't have. I wanted to have my throat sting in a different way. I wanted to look like a child who only fell on the ground. Yet I couldn't. I was forced to endure pain and anger without the luxury of tears to vent it out with. I was like a stuffy drawing room, where there was enough heat inside to cook a piece of meat, but the windows were jammed shut. Then I broke through those windows with something hard to break the glass, and a scream erupted from my burning throat. I wanted someone to find me, to kill me because of what I had become.

It was then that the clouds started to clear up again, and sun shined through them. I felt something strange on my skin, and looked down at my exposed flesh. It was mesmerizing. I was a human jewel. I was glittering with a spectacular gold. _Lux Aurumque_, light and gold. How could a song of birth and happiness, and how the angels would sing describe my life now? It was a beautiful song describing something beautifully horrible. I laid back down, , flipping onto my stomach so my face was down in the snow. The flakes stuck to me, my face lacking the warmth to melt them on contact. I was alone on the hill, wanting to embrace the death I knew would never come

But hell, I was going to try.

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Please review! I'm working through most of my classes to get this done...

Also, _Lux Aurumque_ is a choir arrangement by Eric Whitacre, also arranged for bands, which is where I heard it. You can look it up at JWPepper's website

_Lux,______________________Light,__  
calida gravisque_____________warm and heavy__  
pura velut aurum ___________pure as gold,__  
et canunt angeli ____________and the angels sing softly__  
molliter modo natum_________ to the newborn babe._


	3. Suicide

I couldn't count how many times I'd attempted to take my own life.

First I tried drowning myself. About three miles from the cemetery hill there was a lake, which in the extreme winter had been completely frozen over. The ice was, I'd say, six inches thick, thick enough to hold a good sized man. With my superhuman balance, I walked out into the middle of the lake, knelt down, and punched a hole clear through the frozen cover, and then again, and again. I kept punching through with ease, until the hole I created was large enough for me to slip through. I could feel the cold air of the water blow up against my face, warning me that it was gravely freezing. With one last breath, I pushed myself in quickly, waiting for the stinging sensation of the icy water to come over me, killing my brain and the rest of my body. But it never came. I was simply floating, not bobbing back to the surface or sinking to the bottom. I was motionless. I looked frozen, but I was not. I was anything but. I was alive, and this was not going to help. I wasn't sure how long I stayed underwater. It got dark, and then light. I knew I wasn't going to die, but I kept trying, and it was keeping me from feeding on anyone, which I wanted more than I wanted to die.

Then there was the cliff jumping. Above the lake there was a cliff that extending over the lake and around behind the mountain. With my newly acquired strength, the trek that would have been strenuous and long lasted only a few short seconds with barely any energy lost on my part. I inched toward the edge, having doubts on what I was doing. My fear of heights had not been eliminated upon my transformation, only proving that my brain was the only evidence of my old existence, but even those memories were unclear. I looked over the edge and I put my hands behind my back to keep myself from catching myself. "Please Lord, save me. Take me," I said as I closed my eyes and looked up toward the heavens. Before I could stop myself, I gave a human-like jump.

This pattern continued for weeks.

I might have been insane, because I was doing the same action each time and yet, I expected different results. Did God not want me? Was I not good enough for him? I kept questioning myself as I sat at the bottom of the mountain after my final jump. Meanwhile, the burning in my throat was becoming unbearably painful. It felt like I had swallowed needles, and it had the stinging pain of a million microscopic paper cuts. It was nothing but distracting now, and I could feel myself becoming weaker because of it, both mentally and physically. Maybe the physical weakness was due to the cliff jumping. I doubted it.

It was like the day I was changed. I was weak again. My legs could barely support my weight, and it was my brain that was being numbed by hunger. How long had it been since that day? I didn't know for sure because lately time hadn't become a priority to me. I had all eternity. The snow had been slowly dying down in quantity, maybe a month or so? A month. I clutched my stomach just thinking about it. I had been dead for a month…only a month. I had centuries, millennia to live, and all I had endured was a month. I was starving. Surely a creature like me, even if they didn't have to sleep or heed to any of the other needs of man, that they would need something to sustain them? Of course. All vampires needed only one thing, blood. They needed the rush, the revenge. They wanted to take the anger of who they were out on the innocent like me, but I was no longer innocent. I would not become a savage. I would truly die and end this torture!

A scent came to my nose, one of perhaps…jasmine? I never really knew flowers. I suppose that's because I never had a woman in the house to teach me about them. Venom flowed through my mouth, over my tongue, reminding me of the growing hunger inside of me. I was like a human without water. I walked toward the scent, getting faster as it grew stronger. I would not let myself become a savage! Trying hard, I held myself back as I peaked from around a tree at the source of the scent. I was at the edge of the forest, near the cemetery where my mother lay. I looked up the hill at the lone visitor in the blustery snow. My fingernails dug into the bark of the tree in resistance.

I would _not _let myself bite_ Audrey._

She stood over my grave, her knees in the snow with nothing but her coat and dress to protect her delicate skin from the cold, or my teeth. A growl came through my throat from my empty stomach. My nails caused the tree to crack, and I saw her turn to inspect the noise. Quickly, I turned away, running. I could not risk being near her. I would never hurt a human, and I certainly would never hurt _Audrey Gray. My Audrey Gray._

I found myself fighting with myself. I needed to drink, I needed to drink _blood._ But then there was the other moral side of me that wanted me to keep suffering from insanity, to keep throwing myself off cliffs and drowning myself in a frozen lake. The snow did not numb me cold, as Audrey was being numbed. The snowflakes didn't melt against my face as they did hers. I found myself loathing her, my frozen heart filled with jealously for her humanity. She could grow, she could have a family, she could cry, and she could _die. _I wanted death. I wanted death more than anything, even blood. She could leave this world forever, never to be plagued by the disease, the cruelty and all the other contents of Pandora's Box. I had to endure it.

My thoughts that slowly threw me into a depression were interrupted when a different scent reached me. It was nowhere near as sweet, but it was oh so…_tempting. _The burning in my throat intensified, and I could no longer separate my "human" mind from my animalistic instincts. My legs started to move against my will. What was I thinking, I had no will. I only had my intense, burning, hunger! As I moved closer I could hear several hearts beating calmly, and the scent intensified, more than just the one present. They were all different, and yet, they were just as enticing as the first. My limbs began to tremble from the emptiness of my stomach, soon to be filled. Without even thinking another thought, I realized that I was airborne, and once I was on the ground, my teeth had been latched to flesh, and the sweet, warm blood was following down my burning throat.

The relief came over me like a tsunami.

I bit in deeper, taking advantage of all the blood I could. I was barely enjoying the taste, but I was taking pleasure in the burning going away. The victim squirmed in my grip, but I held tighter, crushing its bones under my embrace. It fell to the ground, and I could feel myself becoming fuller as it became weaker. Within a minute, it was completely cold and dead.

I stepped back and the first thing I saw was the blood splattered all over my clothing. I quickly took off my shirt and sucked on it, salvaging everything I could to satisfy the hunger that had tortured me for so long. Then there was the dead being in front of me. A relief much stronger than that of the blood rushed my guilt away in an instant. It was a dear, a large buck. While deer were always the most innocent of animals in my mind, it wasn't a human. People killed and ate animals all the time! I smiled, and laughed as I wiped the blood from my lips.

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**Yes, very short chapter, but the detailing makes up for it, right?  
Thanks so much for all the great reviews! I've never gotten so many on so few of chapters. They're really motivational. Keep reviewing and I'll keep writing!**


	4. Moving

The winter, though harsh and brittle, seemed to pass in a blur of time once I had my epiphany. Even though my blood lust presented itself with vengeance on a daily basis, the temptation was never as great as those first weeks of my second life, and therefore, not as bothersome or distracting. The dwindling connection to my "home" (due to my lack of human memories) caused me to rethink my situation and literally where I was in this new life. With my newfound speed and strength, I wasn't limited to London any longer. I had no family ties, no apprenticeships to honor or any purpose whatsoever here. I could leave for Liverpool or Manchester or even as far as Edinburg! Then again, why limit myself to England and Scotland? As I found in my failed suicide attempts, I didn't need to breathe, so swimming to the continent wouldn't be difficult at all. It would be more like climbing a tree or tackling a fickle stag.

I decided that one the snow melted away from the land and the ice disappeared from the swallow shores, I would send myself on a journey but little did I know at the time that it would be never ending. In the spring, I would send myself across the channel between England and the continent, and arrive in France, where I would study, hunt and meditate. Perhaps somewhere I would find more of my kind, someone with similar values to me. After all, I couldn't be the only vampire in the world that discovered the satisfying physical and moral effects of animal blood, could I? Perhaps I would settle down in France after that, but even if I didn't, I had the world before me, and I could go anywhere I wished.

However, like most great plans, something comes along to set it off course. One mistake, one decision, delayed my departure by months. Audrey Gray had been on my mind since the blood lust had died away substantially. Where was she? How was she? Did she still think of m—no. No, not such a selfish question would pass through my mind completely. This was about her, not me. Yet I still needed to know. I needed the closure. The day I planned to leave for France, sometime in what I assumed was March, I observed my area of London from the steeple of my father's own church, unnoticed by the townspeople below that seemed very preoccupied with the ground. This preoccupation brought me frustration, as I couldn't see anyone's face. Everyone's gait looked similar, a lumber which everyone seemed to possess after their long winter hibernations. Even my sharp eyes couldn't tell the difference between a man and a woman, but my acute sense of smell could easily pick her out of the crowd. Jasmine, yes it was jasmine and it wasn't perfume; it was _her_. Audrey Gray My-

No, she wasn't. She wasn't _My_ Audrey Gray anymore.

Even from above I could see it—a bump, a bulge protruding from her once flat stomach area. Her humble cotton gown showed it all, but no one would notice unless they were me. I wouldn't have taken notice if I hadn't heart another faint little heart, or smelled thin blood running through tiny little veins. A baby, a new, living life. The man I assumed would be the father, and her husband, walked next to her. I knew him, but we were never really heavily acquainted. He was a member of my father's church, a good man to be sure, but nothing truly special—not that I had been. Was it envy that got me to stay? Perhaps. Was it concern and love? Definitely. I wouldn't allow myself to run away from all of this, not just yet.

For months I sat on that steeple, accompanied by crows and owls and a whole manner of birds. One night early in my watch I snuck into a shop, and snatched a tome away, a dusty volume that hadn't been touched in years. A _Leonardo DaVinci _medical study. Through all weather I waited and watched Audrey like a hawk, like a guard, like an angel, but I was none of those things. If anything, I was a man desperate for the familiar, as I feared the unknown. The fertile spring passed into the growing summer heat, and gradually into the fading fall. Audrey came out less and less, but I knew she was still alive. The baby's scent started to dominant its being during the sixth month, and its heart still beat strong, even though hers would falter. When the time finally came for the child to be born, I had moved from the roof of the church, to the roof of their home, where I listened in sheer agony for hours while she painfully brought a new life into the world. With each passing second my fear that Audrey would meet the fate of my mother grew. Ever since I was a teenager and aware of how anatomy worked in the most basic sense, I was curious on how women ever managed to survive through the ordeal of childbirth, pushing a being as long as my forearm and fully formed through an opening so small it could still hold the child inside her through its developing months. Yet there were still mothers in the world, even if I had lost mine. I suppose it would remain a mystery for years to come. I left soon after the birth of Carlisle, yes, she named the babe Carlisle, and that came as a shock even to me. I never saw the baby, and I never would, but as I finally left England for the continent, I never thought that the child would be so important to me much later in my life. Our stories of our lives were only beginning.

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Hello ! I didn't even truly realize how long it's been since I've updated this fan fiction. I was a sophomore when I last updated, and now I'm going into my senior year. I'm so sorry I haven't written, but I've just fallen into complete disarray when it comes to inspiration and confidence in the writing department. Hopefully I'll get back on track. Please don't lose faith in me! This is just a little update I know, but it's to prove that I'm still alive and to get you all to come baaaaack. Thank you! Please rate and review, because it makes me happy and gets me to write more!


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